ENGINEER, AUTHOR, AND INVENTOR OF THE GEODESIC DOME

Man of Many Talents.

"Bucky" Fuller was an inventor, engineer, architect, mathematician, cartographer, philosopher, scientist, environmentalist, poet, author, and educator who, because of his wide range of interests and abilities, has been compared with Leonardo da Vinci. He is most famous for his creation of geodesic domes—structures of honeycombed triangles encompassing maximum space and strength with minimal materials. Since their invention in 1947 geodesic domes have been used in thousands of structures throughout the world.

Early Handicaps.

Fuller had impaired vision as a child, and he was fitted for his first eyeglasses at the age of four. "I was filled with wonder at the beauty of the world and I have never lost my delight in it," Fuller told one of his biographers. In kindergarten he built his first tetrahedronal octet truss (three squares...